A planning application for the proposed facility was submitted yesterday and another, for a second site at South Hill Gardens, is expected next week.
Senator Steve Pallett, who formerly had political responsibility for sport in Jersey, called it a ‘good-news story’ when the progress was confirmed at a hearing of the Economic and International Affairs Scrutiny Panel.
Assistant Economic Development Minister Hugh Raymond, who now has responsibility for Island sport, said that, subject to planning, ‘we can start building this towards the latter part of the summer and therefore get it ready for January 2022’.
The ‘compromise’ to take forward both sites was agreed by the States earlier this month. The Les Quennevais project was expected to reach the planning stage before the proposals for South Hill, with Economic Development Minister Lyndon Farnham previously saying this was because the former initiative was ‘far more advanced’.
Project manager Ollie Brewster told the panel that submitting the Les Quennevais application was a ‘huge milestone for the project’ and that ‘good progress’ had been made on the South Hill application, which he said was expected to be submitted by the end of next week.
Under the original plans, a main skate park and a smaller satellite facility were to be created using a budget of £1.2 million.
Senator Pallett said funding was available for a main skate park but asked where the money would come from for a second park and other sites. ‘Clearly it is not going to be achievable within the current budget available,’ he said.
Deputy Raymond said discussions had taken place within the department and that they were looking to put something together in terms of further funding, while Senator Farnham said that at the States sitting earlier this month ‘we all agreed in principle not just to deliver a single skate park, but we are going to invest in Islandwide facilities, not least in St Helier and in the east of the Island’.
Senator Farnham said it was ‘hugely important that we invest in the east of the Island as well’.
An additional investment of around £1 million would be required to ‘deliver everything that we all want to deliver’, he said, which would include two key facilities, investments in existing facilities in St Ouen and St John, investments in the east of the Island and further satellite areas in and around St Helier.
There were ‘a number of options’ to deliver financing, Senator Farnham told the panel. The longer-term project would have to be included in next year’s government plan, he added.
Deputy Raymond said they were in discussion with Grouville Constable John Le Maistre and St Clement Constable Len Norman, and would be meeting them to talk about facilities in the east of the Island.
